


Classroom Ballet

by BasicallyAnIdiot



Series: The Senju Princess [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF!sakura, Gen, Iruka is trying his best okay?, Senju!Sakura (Naruto), Soon to be BAMF!Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicallyAnIdiot/pseuds/BasicallyAnIdiot
Summary: The sight was rare enough that Iruka almost paused in his lecture.In the back row, Senju Sakura had raised her hand.





	Classroom Ballet

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm dealing with a sinus cold. Which sucks. To sooth my pain, I wrote this quick fic for 'The Senju Princess' Series. A la my cold medicine, this series will be now told from Iruka's POV only.
> 
> My thanks to UnbowedUnbentUnbrokenDreamer for letting me bounce ideas around.
> 
> Now, please excuse me while I go curl up in a ball and hide from the light.

**Classroom Ballet**

 

The sight was rare enough that Iruka almost paused in his lecture.

In the back row, Senju Sakura had raised her hand.

Even at the distance, Iruka could see the beginnings of a frown. Thin pink eyebrows were drawn together, and her lips were pressed together. Beside her, the Kyuubi’s jailor was awake -for once- and also frowning. Sharp blue eyes watched Iruka intently.

A sense of impending dread filled him. In the months since Sakura had joined his classroom, she had never asked a question on the materials. All of her tests came back perfect regardless and she was unrivaled in the girl’s side of the taijutsu spars. It was enough Iruka was debating the merits of moving her into the boys’ spars.

At the moment though, as he told the lie behind the battle against the Kyuubi and how the Yondaime sacrificed himself to defeat the beast, Iruka couldn’t help but wonder if he should answer her.

He dismissed the thought as soon as it arrived. He was her teacher. He was there to answer her questions. So Iruka nodded, and said, “Yes, Sakura-hime?”

The girl stood, her chair not even scraping against the floor. “What happened to the Kyuubi?”

Iruka quickly reviewed everything he had said up to this point. It should not have made him nervous that he already explained that lie. The other students were picking up at the questioning, confusion apparent in the blinking. “The Kyuubi was destroyed by the Yondaime.”

Sakura stared at him, brows now furrowed tightly in confusion. She did not sit down. “How?”

“A forbidden jutsu.” Iruka answered quickly, hoping it was enough to get the Senju Princess off of this line of questioning. Even Shikamaru was looking at him intently now from where his head rested on crossed arms in a middle row.

“Forbidden jutsu are forbidden because the average kunoichi or shinobi do not have the chakra reserves to use them. To attempt to use one would kill them.” A textbook response. Not unexpected. Sakura narrowed her seafoam eyes as she scented blood in the water. Going for the kill. “It is not forbidden to tell us what kind of jutsu it was. How did Yondaime-sama defeat the Kyuubi, Iruka-sensei?”

Every single pair of eyes in classroom settled on him, waiting expectantly. Iruka was not a chunin for nothing though. He would not be intimidated by a student in his classroom.

So he sighed softly, as if it was pulling teeth, crossed his arms and lied, “We don’t know exactly. The Yondaime Hokage was an expert in creating jutsu and fuinjutsu. What he used was one of his creations. Likely untested prior to his battle with the Kyuubi.”

Almost as one, all the students’ eyes turned back to Sakura. Her frown had softened a hair and she didn’t seem to notice the attention on her. “We will learn about fuinjutsu in the academy?”

The girl would not let it go, would she? Iruka shook his head, “Nothing beyond the basics. If you want to learn more about fuinjutsu, you will have to wait until you are Genin and ask your Jounin-sensei.”

Sakura paused for a long moment, but finally nodded and sat down again.  

Iruka should have known that wasn’t going to be the end of it.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The next day, Sakura arrived with a scroll thicker than her arms together and almost as big as her torso resting on her shoulder. She ignored Iruka on her way to the back row, Naruto eagerly awaited her arrival. Their table shook when the scroll landed on it.

Expertly Sakura bit her thumb and laid it against the seal on the scroll, letting the paper unroll to the first bit of it’s length. The Senju nodded decisively, and sat down with one finger tracing the words. Naruto bounced beside her, hovering over her shoulder, and the two quietly muttered back and forth. The blond started doodling on his paper and gesturing to it.

Class wouldn’t begin for a few more minutes, so Iruka couldn’t exactly ask them to put it away. But he could see what it was all about.

Sakura saw him on his way up the stairs and immediately pasted a polite smile on her face. “Good morning, Iruka-sensei.”

“Good morning, Sakura-hime, Naruto.” Iruka smiled back, “What is that you’ve brought in?”

Sakura’s smile faltered for a moment, only a second really, before it widened. “A scroll from my clan’s library. I’m helping Naruto-kun catch up on his history and figured it would be more interesting to hear it from the people who were there.”

Naruto blinked frowning. He opened his mouth but closed it when Sakura hit him in the side. Then he grinned and added, “Yeah! It’s really cool, Iruka-sensei! The Shoudai was awesome but the Nidaime was a bad-ass and made all of these crazy jutsu and he was apparently a master of fuinjutsu but he only learned it from his brother’s wife who was-”

Iruka gently bopped the blond on the head, “Language, Naruto.” He didn’t believe a word from either of them. He also had absolutely no authority taking a scroll from a clan heir, especially from the Senju Princess. If word got out that he had even tried, the clans would raise an uproar and he’d be banished to border patrol for the rest of his career.

Judging from Sakura’s sweet smile, she knew it too.

The game continued. This round went to Sakura, “Alright, as long as it doesn’t distract the class.”

“Of course, Iruka-sensei.” Sakura all but purred, words dripping honey.

As he turned to head back down the stairs, he caught a glimpse of the scroll’s content. Of symbols he was only familiar with due to his time on the barrier squad. Fuinjutsu. Basics. Mostly warnings about what could go wrong, but a starting place.

He also got a clearer view of Naruto’s scribbles. The symbols from scroll. The seals. Somehow copied perfectly from the scroll. There were arrows and words, Iruka was too far away to make much sense of it, but it looked like… an analysis.

Naruto shouldn’t have had a clue what any of it meant.

“Something wrong, Iruka-sensei?” Sakura asked sweetly. Her smile was polite, as always, but her seafoam eyes were cool. Assessing him.

Clan kid through and through. This was beyond his control really- he couldn't dictate anything against what was clan approved. Guide them then. That was his best bet. Iruka shook his head, and quietly, so that the rest of the class didn’t hear, “You do not try any of these without proper supervision. Either of you. No one wants or deserves that clean up job. Am I understood?”

“Yup!” Naruto grinned, “Tsunade-oba-chan already said she’d watched us practice!”

Sakura sighed, “It’s Tsunade-oba _-sama_ , Naruto-kun.” A terrifying thought. How long had Naruto known Tsunade of the Sannin?

Iruka wanted to say more, but the bell rang and class came into session. He’d just have to ask another time.

**Author's Note:**

> What to prompt me for The Senju Princess? Come find me on [ Tumblr!](https://basicallyanidiot.tumblr.com/)


End file.
